


A Night for Stories

by Lightheaded_Dullahan



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Gen, I just wanted to write something happy and kinda cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 20:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightheaded_Dullahan/pseuds/Lightheaded_Dullahan
Summary: “Master.”“Yes?”“What is this?”“...This is Anderson.”





	A Night for Stories

**Author's Note:**

> I had the sudden idea and a certain cat said it would be cuter if Anderson was smaller. So this is the result.

“Master.”

“Yes?”

“What is this?”

“...This is Anderson.”

‘This’ was more accurately described as a younger Anderson. Not the youth he showed as a heroic spirit, but the youth an actual child would have. No more than possibly 10, but certainly leaning more towards six, the author’s lab coat was barely hanging on with his now baggy clothing making him look all the tinier. His glasses didn’t fit, nearly falling from his face as his large eyes looked around. Scheherazade stared at the child that was shoved into her arms by that loud playwright who simply told her to ‘hold this’ and then promptly walked off to who knows where. The storyteller had absolutely no idea what she was meant to do. Was she supposed to babysit this child? Was she supposed to quite literally hold him until that other caster came back? Not to mention, how on earth did he end up like this?

“So we can’t leave him here because they employees can’t keep an eye on him and everything in the singularity, and since you normally stay behind in a safe place when we're out on missions, you can look after him until we figure out a cure okay?”

“Wait, Master-”

“Great! Alright, get ready to be rayshifted with him okay?”

“But!-”

Ritsuka was gone in a flash, turning the corner and leaving the poor author with the small child. Scheherazade lifted the boy to face him, his glasses falling from his face onto the floor below him. She let out a sigh, nervously accepting her fate as an improvised baby sitter. If she was lucky, this wouldn’t result in her untimely demise.

 

 

Scheherazade situated herself in an abandoned home far from the battlefield. She would stay with Anderson until they finished the mission, or if they found a cure before then. Whichever came first. As she looked around the home for bedding, after all even a heroic spirit child is still a child, she saw the boy looking at the scattered books in the home. He picked up one, relatively small in size, and opened it. The writer watched as the boy’s face contorted in frustration as he attempted to read. He shut the book and reached for another after tossing the old one aside. Walking over to him, she kneeled down to see what he was reading. 

There was no rhyme or reason to his book selection, he simply picked up whatever was near him and attempt to read it. Each book was soon tossed aside until there was none left he could reach. He turned to the woman with his head hung low. 

“I can’t read them…”

His voice is the exact opposite of his normal sound. The deep voice had changed to a soft and light voice only a child would possess. He was staring at his shoes and the books as if he didn’t know how to continue from his last comment. Scheherazade pieced together that he was asking her to read to him. Looking around, she also put together many of these books would be dull to a child. It was obvious whoever owned this house was an adult who greatly enjoyed books that belonged in a high-class school. 

“Ah, these are boring books. You wouldn’t like them very much.”

“Oh...they aren’t storybooks?”

“No, I’m afraid these are books for adults. They are very boring.”

“They just looked like a book my father would read to me...so I thought they were storybooks.”

She wondered what type of book his father would read to him. Books like that were usually uninteresting to a child. Perhaps his father read a collection type of book, that would explain why he thought those books were for children. 

“I see, you wish to hear a story then?”

The boy nodded. Scheherazade hummed as she pulled the scroll from her staff and walked over to the bed. The younger heroic spirit followed her and sat on the bed as she unrolled the scroll. His brows furrowed again. 

“It’s blank.”

“Not for long. Now, what kind of tale do you desire?”

“The ones my father would read to me.”

“And what tales are those?”

“Do you know the Arabian Nights?”

“Fufu...yes, I know them very well.”

Scheherazade began to recite the first tale, as the blank scroll soon blossomed with colors and movement as it played out what she spoke. She smiled at the look of awe on the boy’s face, moving closer to let him see more of the scroll as it unraveled and revealed the next part in the story. Soon, the scroll began to pile on the floor as the tale neared its end. The storyteller paused as the images faded into the black scroll. Anderson, at least him as a child, was smiling with wide eyes as she spoke. She started the second tale, the imagery bloomed once again. The child next to her seemed to glow with happiness as he watched the tale played out. 

The day began to wane as Scheherazade finished another tale. The boy had laid his head on her lap and had fallen in the state between sleep and awakenedness. The scroll had piled up on the floor, full of no longer moving pictures and the colors fading away to become blank once again. She began yet another as the boy yawned and closed his eyes. Once she heard him snore softly, she rolled her scroll back up and put it back in her staff. Careful not to wake him, she moved him so he was laying on his head on a pillow. 

Leaning against the wall, she herself fell into a state of mock sleep. Servants didn’t need sleep, but a rest every now and then was appreciated. She wasn’t sure how long she had been as unconscious as a spirit could be, but when she felt something move on the bed her eyes shot open. Her lap felt heavier as she tried to move to get up. Looking down, she found the boy curled up against her with his head resting on her lap. Sighing in relief it wasn’t a sudden attack, Scheherazade draped an arm around the boy as she leaned back against the wall. 

 

 

As it turned out, Shakespeare was responsible for the mess. Apparently, he thought it was quite funny to have Anderson be a real child. At least until he realized he had actually made Anderson believe he was a child and not just put him in a smaller body. That was when he panicked and passed him off to the nearest person before going off to try and figure out how to fix it with the help of the resident master. 

Luckily, the mission did uncover a way to reverse the predicament. Anderson gave the playwright quite the angry rant once he was returned to normal. In fact, Scheherazade was sure she heard a new page of the dictionary be developed with his shouting. How someone that small could have such a pair on lungs was amazing all on its own. 

While she was looking through the books in the library, and simultaneously wondering how some of the other servants feel about having their entire life stories readily available for anyone to read it, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, she found Anderson- the normal Anderson who was at least a good head taller than his younger form, holding out a book to her. Taking the small book from him, she asked what she was being given it for.

“Think of it as a thank you. For the stories. I thought it was fitting.”

“I see, thank you.”

A moment passed.

“Your father read my stories to you as a child, I recall you saying that from before.”

“Hm, yes. That was my introduction to literature. I loved those stories...no, I still love them after all this time.”

There’s a smile on Anderson’s face, one that is nostalgic and in a way longing. The type of smile only an adult would have. After another moment, his face returns to his normally serious face. He exchanges a goodbye before going off back to where he was before. Scheherazade looked at the book and read the title.

_The Flying Trunk and other stories._

Opening the book, she sat down and began to read. Something about the story seemed familiar to her. So very familiar.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in the story image, check out @Aryamelati and @sundayshu on Tumblr because it's a gift from them and their art is amazing (They're known as Ririsuu_ariya and D8ONO on here respectively. Check out their stories if you can.). I can't express how much I love the drawing. I just love it.


End file.
